Wood Heat Thread ~ post pics

One less step. I'm lazy.

 

Huh?
You do or you don't?

 

I gotta give you credit on you wood storage solution. That scaffold shed is ingenious! Good work sir

 

Got my overflow stacked , I'll rig up the roof tomorrow

 

My Husqvarna is "ignition switch on, choke on" for 1-2 pulls, then I just shut the choke off and she fires. Every time. After it's warmed up it's just 1 pull with the choke off.


Edit- Sometimes if I'm fast enough switching the choke off I can catch it and fire it in one pull on a cold start, but usually I'm not fast enough.

 

Got my roof rigged up with some left over 1/2" plywood , some 2x4's from the formwork at our job and a part roll of self adhering eavegaurd roofing underlayment

 

I always have to do a mental check for your area, Oz. I'm looking at that picture and thinking "but that won't shed a snow load at all....oh, right. No snow really to worry about"

 

We get snow , we actually got quite a bit this last year , that hasn't really been a problem so far

 

No snow here, but I an envious of the lack of overhang he needs. When it does rain here, it comes in sideways with considerable force.

 

I usually lean some 1/2 plywood sheets up against the bottoms of the stacks for winter , it pisses down rain here in spring and fall and winter , that area is under trees though so pretty protected from wind driven rain and those are not the woodsheds I keep my wood in I'm actually using for that winter , that is by the house and more robust

That back area is wood that is drying for future use

 

First load with the sideboards I built. Had I been able to start at 0700 I may have been able to get 4 full rows, but 90* and humid I ran out of steam pretty fast. Still enough to engage half of the overload spring. Mix of seasoned and green oak, manzanita, sycamore, and pine.

 

I don't think we have had a week without heavy rain all summer here in PA. I have been able to keep wood dry every other year with just simple top tarping. Glad I scored the load of logs from a local mill a couple months back or I wouldn't have anything at all. The last time I was on the mountain cutting I nesrly burried the truck coming DOWN!

 

So a small storm came through my place about 3 or 4 weeks ago and snapped the top half of a big pine tree. That fell onto a smaller scraggly pine and pretty much stripped the branches off the little one. It also managed to hit the power line too, but that is still intact. I pulled the remainder of the small tree over and even managed to get the stump out doing it. The bigger tree still has about 40 feet standing. I've been running my my chipper for the branches, and finally got smart. My chipper is now in my trailer to help contain the chips and make them easier to move when I am done. I got about 2/3 of a cord already cut into rounds and moved to the splitting area and still have more to carve and move.

Unfortunately during this process, my chainsaw died mid cut going full speed. I don't have an exact age, but I think k the saw was about 40 years. It is a McCullough Mac 1010. I replaced it with a new Husqvarna 460R.

In another couple months, the power company is coming out to replace the power pole in my front yard. I am going to try to sweet talk them into tying a tow strap on what is left of the big tree while they have a bucket truck out there. Otherwise, I can only get about half way up the tree. In return, I'm going to open up a section of my fence so they can easily get their trucks in and out of my yard.

I've also been working on splitting some wood I got about 8 months ago. The guy didn't know what it was, but thought some was fir, and the other I was told was locust. The locust has been a pain in the back, but a couple days ago I started the fir. I buried 4 wedges into a round, and only got maybe 1/4 of the wood to break loose. That dirty fucker has about 75 degrees of twist over about 16 inches. I managed to pull 2 of the wedges back out but 2 are still stuck in there. I'll be splitting the rest of that piece with a chainsaw.

 

That would be a hoot. We save the locust for the really cold nights. The locust we have here, what I have seen, is yellow/gold and hard. Nails bend when driven into it. The grain is tight and the branches have thorns. It is really hard to split, but worth the effort or cost of a splitter. Around here locust is called "Yellow Gold" Ash is called "White Gold", everything else is just wood. It coals real well, and I get good all night burns. It needs a bed of coals to do that though. It spits in a bonfire so not so good in a fire pit. Too much draft with locust and you can warp your stove pieces. Don't ask.

Ken in NC

 

A couple of holes, some black powder, sturdy plugs, ignition source --problem solved. Check U-Tube

Disclaimer: I have never done this, never been involved in doing this and am not recommending that you or any one else do it either.

 

I've got a couple pieces of Sycamore like that. Even running them on the splitter all that happened was the I-beam started to twist. Anything that hard to split becomes the new chopping block.

 

Around here, pine is everywhere and easy to get free. Fir and tamrack are the sought after woods still common and easy enough to get, but not free.

The fir and locust I got were free, and already rounds and no branches around. The guy was talking about taking taking out another fir and offered to just give me the wood to get rid of it. Haven't heard yet if he has taken any of it off or even scheduled to yet.

 

I may or may not have done something similar to this using sparkler bombs. The stump may have had a piece go flying (and by piece I mean a normal piece of firewood) about 60 feet almost hitting another person in the head.

 

Locust can have a spiral twist to it. Gnarly cutting one like that, it does not fall where it is supposed to. Some we just don't split.

 

Just went and had a look at all that fir I split up and stored in the scaffold woodshed for this upcoming winter , nicely drying checks through all of it , should be nice and warm this winter